Why Is It Always the Beths?

Alternate post title: The Beth's Have It.

One of my very favorite people in the whole world is my friend Beth. She's awesome. A different Beth than the last one.

I met this Beth sporadically at random times in the life of the clergy of our diocese. She's an Episcopal priest and I'm married to one so we ran into one another from time to time. She knew Chris well and so we would be like, "oh yeah. We've met... uh... hi...???'

And then I became the interim missioner of the campus ministry at t.u. 
And Beth became the missioner there.
So we had some overlap while I "taught her the ropes."

Okay, I was supposed to be holding down the fort/teaching her the ropes/helping her transition/etc. But in reality Beth is one of the most intelligent capable go-for-it people I've ever met so she came in and took over (in a great way), and I would come to work at whatever hour I felt like, dump my hugely pregnant self into a chair in my office, eat queso, and read Harry Potter. You would think that this would have made Beth despise me. But it didn't. Now that I know Beth I'm pretty sure this is what made her love me. Had I been super-helpful and in her face and still trying to run the place she would have loathed me. I think the fact that I just let her take over sealed the deal. That combined with and all of the queso and Harry Potter. Being from Virginia Beth swears she has to now eat enough queso in adulthood to make up for the years before she moved to Austin. Yeah, see why we're friends?

Beth and I had no "becoming friends" phase. We went instantly to being BFF. We have a shared love of reading and she is one of the few people who can give me books and I don't feel like "oh crap... do I have to actually read this like homework now?" She is one of those people who can talk about anything. If I want to talk her face off about polar exploration she will listen attentively and (at least pretend) like what I'm saying is as fascinating as I imagine. She is up for an adventure pretty much all of the time so if I say something like "I was reading about Kenya..." she will tell a story about being in Kenya. Or sailing in Maine. Or climbing Mt. Everest during the 1996 disaster. Okay, I made that last one up.

Beth's awesome. And that's why on Sunday I found myself wearing her hand-me-down shirt and groovy patterned tights. Because I'm like the technically older, younger sister she never had. Which might be why she puts up with me.

Luckily we bamboozled her into being Nils' godmother so she's pretty much stuck with me for life.